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Ancient Civilization Lesson

Teacher: Jennifer Watford Grade Level: 6th grade No. of students: 2-6

Theme or Topic: Ancient Greece – City States and the Roles of Individuals

Subject Area: Humanities/Reading Pull-out

Levels of ELP in the class: In the areas of listening and speaking, the English Language Proficiency levels are at the developing, expanding, and bridging range. While in the areas of reading and writing, students are in the beginning, developing and expanding levels.

Illinois Learning Standards:

18.B.3a Analyze how individuals and groups interact with and within institutions (e.g., educational, military)

16.D.2 Describe the various roles of men, women and children in the family, at work, and in the community in various time periods and places (e.g., ancient Greece, ancient Rome, Medieval Europe, ancient China, Sub-Saharan Africa)

1.C.3c Compare, contrast and evaluate ideas and information from various sources and genres.

(WIDA) Illinois ELP Standard(s):

ELP Standard 5 – Social Studies and ELP Standard 1 – Language Arts

Big Idea/Essential Understanding(s):

• People form communities to help them meet their needs and desires.

• Different communities have different values.

Content Objective(s):

Identify and describe a Greek city-state and explain how it contributed to people’s needs.

Compare and contrast life in the city-state of Athens with life in the city-state of Sparta.

Create a poster to describe how living in a Greek city-state would benefit the people living there.

 

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Language Objectives:

Describe characteristics of a Greek city-state using pictures and sentence prompts.

Compare and contrast life in the city-states of Athens and Sparta using a comparison matrix.

Discuss how living in a Greek city-state would benefit its people using pictures and sentence prompts.

Key Content Vocabulary:

Most important concepts needed to understand the big idea: community, needs, desires, values

Most important content vocabulary: city-state - polis, citizen, Sparta, Athens, slaves, helots

Imp. Other vocabulary:

similarities, differences, but, both, because, common, characteristic

Preview Phase (Introduction)

Part I: Procedure to hook students

Materials: Pictures of modern day cities/communities, pictures of buildings one would find in a city government, police, fire stations, hospitals, stores, theaters, church, homes etc…, LCD projector

Specific Content Objective Identify and describe the aspects of a city/community or town.

Procedure:

1. Describe to students where you live – what kinds of buildings are there, the types of things you can do, etc… while showing pictures of what you are describing on the LCD projector.

2. Have students think about what they know about their own city/communitiy where they live.

3. Roundrobin what do you know about cities/communities? And have students report back.

 

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Grouping Configuration: Heterogeneous groups of three, so that students at the beginning level would be able to be with students at the developing and expanding levels to generate more ideas among groups. Roundrobin would be the cooperative structure. Each group would have its own set of pictures.

Differentiated Language Objectives:

Entering and beginning: Name the objects, people, buildings and cities/communities using the pictures.

Developing and expanding: Describe the objects, people, buildings, and cities using the pictures and restate any facts learned.

Part II. Procedure to prepare students for the big idea(s)/understanding(s) and most important concepts:

Materials: www.archaelogychannel.org – Short video on Ancient Greece, poster board, markets

Specific Content objective: Describe and define a community. Describe and define a city-state.

Procedure:

1. Review what students know about cities/communities in general.

2. Ask students how communities meet the needs of the people who live in them? Have students think-pair-share.

3. Discuss and have students talk about ways different communities value different things. Give examples (a community in rural Mexico vs. a community in Mexico City).

4. Watch video on Ancient Greece.

5. Explain and discuss that a city-state had many of the same aspects our cities/communities do today, however, it was more like its own nation (spoke specific language, worshipped certain gods, etc..) with whole group

6. Pass out poster boards – from video and discussion, have students draw out what a city-state was like in ancient Greece and write a definition of city-state below in the student’s own words and share out with partners.

 

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Grouping Configuration: Whole group class discussion on communities/city-states, poster board activity with partners – homogeneous so teacher can walk around and clarify any misconceptions at this point to similar groupings.

Specific Language Objectives:

Entering and beginning: Describe two features of a Greek city-state using media viewed, sentence prompts, and the student’s individualized drawing and orally share.

Developing and expanding: Define, describe, and write out multiple features of a Greek city-state using media viewed, sentence prompts, and the student’s individualized drawing.

FOCUSED LEARNING PHASE (BODY OF THE LESSON)

Pre-reading activity.

Materials: www.brainpop.com video on Athens, graphic organizer

Specific Content Objective: After watching a video clip on Athens, identify and write out specific characteristics of life in Athens.

Procedure:

1. Show brainpop video on Athens.

2. Explain how to fill out the bubble map – model one characteristic.

3. Have students think-pair-share characteristics of the people living in the city of Athens using a bubble map.

4. Have students share what they wrote in their graphic organizers.

5. Have a challenge for those at higher ELP levels. The challenge would be writing a two sentence summary of what they identified in their graphic organizer bubble map.

Grouping Configuration: Heterogeneous partners for think-pair-share.

Specific Language Objectives:

Entering and beginning: Describe characteristics of the city of Athens using think-pair-share and a graphic organizer.

 

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Developing and expanding: Describe and writes out in sentences the characteristics of the city of Athens using think-pair-share and the graphic organizer.

During-reading activity

Materials: Reading materials: Eastern Hemisphere: The World Around Us, See Time Fly Visualizing and Verbalizing History Stories, If I Were a Kid in Ancient Greece: Children of the Ancient World, vocabulary cards divided into 4 parts: word, illustration, definition, synonym-antonym

Specific Content Objective: Describe and define the content words (Sparta, Athens, helots – slaves, agora, acropolis, fortress)

Procedure:

1. Put students with partners according to ELP reading level (Expanding – Eastern Hemisphere, Developing – Time to Fly, Beginning – If I Were A Kid).

2. Model vocabulary cards with reading.

3. Have students work on vocabulary cards and readings comparing life in Sparta with life in Athens.

Grouping Configuration: Homogeneous partners with leveled reading.

Specific Language Objectives:

Entering and beginning: Classify content words whether they relate to Sparta or Athens using a multi-leveled book with extensive visuals and a vocabulary card graphic organizer.

Developing and expanding: Define and describe content words using a multi-leveled book with visuals and a vocabulary card graphic organizer.

Post reading activity

Materials: Eastern Hemisphere: The World Around Us, See Time Fly Visualizing and Verbalizing History Stories, If I Were a Kid in Ancient Greece: Children of the

 

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Ancient World, comparison matrix chart of Sparta and Athens, Compare and contrast sentence stems

Specific Content Objective: Compare and contrast life in the city-state of Athens with life in the city-state of Sparta.

Procedure:

1. Review readings on Sparta and Athens including vocabulary words and clear up any misconceptions.

2. Have students go into homogeneous reading groups and explain and model compare/contrast sentence stems or comparison matrix for the city-states of Athens and Sparta.

3. Do numbered heads together for students to explain similarities and differences between the two city-states.

Grouping Configuration: Homogeneous reading groups at ELP levels, numbered heads together to share out.

Specific Language Objectives:

Entering and beginning: Compare and contrast characteristics between Athens and Sparta given compare/contrast sentence stems/prompts, and a multi-leveled book with extensive visuals.

Developing and expanding: Compare and contrast characteristics between Athens and Sparta given compare/contrast matrix and a leveled book with visuals.

APPLICATION PHASE (CONCLUSION)

Materials: Access to internet for visuals, poster, previous reading materials

Content Objective: Create a poster to describe how living in a Greek city-state would benefit the people living there.

Procedure:

1. Review similarities and differences between living in Athens and living in Sparta.

 

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2. Have students discuss how living in a Greek city-state would be beneficial – talk about things a person would have access to.

3. Explain posters and have students break up in pairs to work on posters.

4. Stand and share when they are finished having it be student-led.

Grouping Configuration: Heterogeneous partners. Stand and share to explain posters.

Specific Language Objectives:

Entering and beginning: Create a poster describing the benefits of living in a Greek city-state using visuals and identifying those visuals by written name.

Developing and expanding: Create a poster describing the benefits of living in a Greek city-state using visuals and written sentences to identify the benefits.

Assessment: I would evaluate the final poster using a rubric. It would be graded differently depending on ELP levels, but all students should be able to identify different aspects to a Greek city-state (i.e. spoke their own language, was like its own nation, men could vote, etc…). I would also give a quiz on the important vocabulary and concepts. Students who were beginning could take the quiz verbally and others who are developing/expanding would take a written quiz.

Appendices

See folllowing student handouts: one for vocabulary, another for the sentence stems/prompts and another for the compare/contrast matrix.

Jennifer Watford 

Attachments for Final Project 

Attachment #1 Graphic Organizer from pre‐reading activity 

 

Buildings                  Sports 

‐_________                ‐___________ 

‐_________                ‐___________ 

‐_________                ‐__________ 

 

ATHENS 

Theater             Government 

‐_________                ‐___________ 

‐_________                ‐___________ 

‐_________                ‐___________ 

 

 

 

 

 

Attachment #2: Vocabulary Word Card from during reading phase 

 

Vocabulary word 

 

City‐state 

 

 

Definition

Illustration 

 

 

 

 

Antonym/Synonym

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attachment #3: Compare/Contrast Sparta and Athens city‐states for post reading activity 

  Athens  Sparta Similarities and Differences 

The role of the people and their leaders 

 

 

   

Daily life of a person  

 

 

   

Social Status of a person 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attachment 4: Compare/contrast sentence stems/prompts for post reading activity 

 

Compare and contrast Athens and Sparta. 

Similarities 

Both Athens and Sparta have _______________________. 

Athens and Sparta both have_______________________. 

Athens has __________________ and Sparta does too. 

Athens has__________________ and so does Sparta. 

 

Differences 

Athens has ______________________, but Sparta has ___________________. 

Sparta doesn’t have _______________________, but Athens does. 

Athens has ___________________; however, Sparta has _________________. 

Sometimes, Athens will have ________________________, but Sparta will never have ________________________.